46 years after tragedy, women meet, find 'sense of peace'

Stranger had comforted child after horrific crash.

Stranger had comforted child after horrific crash.

February 08, 2008

Sheila Harris hugged Shanna Hess tight once again, and both of them let the tears flow. Until Wednesday, their paths had not crossed in 46 years. Shanna, a WSBT-TV account executive and a Dowagiac resident, doesn't remember that first encounter. Sheila can never forget it. It was April 14, 1962. Sheila, just married and 19 years old, was getting ready to host an open house at her new home on the outskirts of Sodus in Berrien County. "And then the train conductor came to our door and said there had been an accident with fatalities," Sheila recalls. "He wanted me to bring warm blankets to the crash scene." Sheila's home was the first one from the railroad crossing on Pipestone Road, not much more than 100 yards away. "I gathered up some blankets that I had on a stairway," Sheila says. "They were already warm by being near the chimney. "Then I went off with the conductor." Knees shaking, voice trembling. Over the years, she has blocked out most of the memories from that awful night. "I do remember climbing up into the train engine and hugging Shanna and her cousin and wrapping them in blankets," says Sheila, now 65 and living near Benton Harbor. Shanna was only 2 years old then. She didn't know it but she had lost her parents, Edert and Joan Bryant, her baby sister, Tammy, and a cousin, Roy Bryant Jr. in the car-train collision. Another cousin, 8-year-old Rose Cooper, also survived. "I stayed with them until a nurse came," Sheila recalls. Bill MoorBill Moor is a Tribune columnist. Then when she went with the conductor to check if there might be something they could do for the others, she fainted. It was a gruesome scene. "My parents were heading from our home in Riverside to my grandparents' home in Dowagiac that evening," Shanna says. Sheila remembers that it was a rainy, cool evening and just after dusk. "There were no lights or gates at that crossing," Sheila adds. "If the kids were noisy or the radio was on, Shanna's dad may have never heard or seen the train until it was too late." Shanna was raised by her grandparents, Rose and Thomas Burch. She didn't realize they weren't her parents until she was 8 years old. "One of my friends finally told me what had happened and I went crying home to my grandmother," Shanna says. It was a time when people often didn't talk about tragedies like that. "My grandmother had lost part of her family, we were coming to her home that night and I apparently looked a lot like my mom," Shanna says. "She didn't ever want it brought up. "There weren't even pictures of my parents around," she adds. Sheila, meanwhile, rarely wanted to talk about it, either. Those memories of that night were still very painful. Yet she did always wonder whatever happened to that little girl she had hugged and tried to soothe. Sheila would have been pleased to know that Shanna had prospered. She became the class president and captain of the cheerleading squad at Dowagiac High School and later started a very successful career in sales. Shanna's grandfather died when she was in sixth grade, but her grandmother lived long enough to see her grow up. "I'm a bit of a spitfire and I'm sure I got that from my grandmother," she says. "I'm also a very spiritual person even though my grandmother had stopped going to church after the accident, saying she was mad at God. "But from my perspective, I try to believe that God had me stay here for a reason instead of sending me to heaven with my family." Married to her high school buddy, Tom Hess, and the mother of four children, Shanna continued to wonder about that night. And then not long ago, Tom, who is a heavy-equipment operator, was filling in a ravine where that crossing and the tracks used to be and met the boyfriend of Sheila's daughter, Lori Wilcox. They started talking and Tom found out that Lori now was in the house where Sheila had lived in 1962. He also learned that Sheila had gone to the accident that evening and comforted Shanna. "Then Sheila came over the next day and wanted to know about Shanna," Tom says. Tom told her. Later that day, he told Shanna about Sheila. It took Shanna some time -- because of the emotions she had held back so long -- but she finally called Sheila last week. They had their reunion in South Bend on Wednesday. "It was very emotional, and also brought a sense of peace -- maybe even some kind of closure, too," Shanna says. "Sheila mentioned that she almost brought another blanket to give to me. "But then she realized I no longer need one." Bill Moor's column appears on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at bmoor@sbtinfo.com, or write him at the South Bend Tribune, 225 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN 46626; (574) 235-6072.